Our three day weekend in San Rafael

 

We had an amazing weekend in the countryside of Medellin last week.  Our coworker, Giovanny invited us to join him and his girlfriend to her family’s farm.  They own a fish farm about 2 hours outside of Medellin in San Rafael.  It is a beautiful small mountain town that has a gorgeous river that runs through it.  During our drive to San Rafael we stopped to climb Penon de Guatape, which is a famous rock that people trudge up the endless steps to get to the top for spectacular views.  The steps are anything but safe and are definitely not ADA approved but the views were worth the struggle.  After our up hill excursion we enjoyed the touristy little river town of Guatape.  Guatape is full of bars and shopping and water sports much like the beach towns in the States.  We strolled around a little before heading to the country. 

Alejandra’s, Giovanny’s girlfriend, family was there and they were so excited to have us join them.  Martha showed us all the fruits and trees that grow around their house.  They tried their best to speak English and we tried our best to speak Spanish.  The kids, two boys about 12 years old, tried their hardest to speak English and it was a great source of entertainment.  Everything they knew came from video games and rap music and they never knew what they were saying!  Then they wanted to go for a little walk, even though we were still exhausted from the endless staircase we decided to go.  Unfortunately families in Colombia are similar to mine and although we took the “short cut” it ended up being a 2 hour walk!  Needless to say after a beer and a soccer game I passed out. 

After falling asleep we woke up to the noises of little tiny feet scurrying all around us.  After hearing one then there were 10 and 20 and then they were EVERYWHERE!  There was no more sleeping for the rest of the night.  But even after a less then perfect night the morning was so beautiful that it was soon forgotten. After a nap on the porch I couldn’t even remember the sound of those scurrying feet.  We spent some time in the little town of San Raphael, it was a typical busy Sunday morning.  We sat and enjoyed some people watching before heading over to the market.  The rest of the day was spent laying around, swimming in the river, and enjoying the company of the familia.  The evening was spent drinking a couple of beers and playing cards, Colombian rummy is much more fun then the one in the States. 

It was a very relaxing weekend and so much fun being a part of a family for a weekend.  We made a lot of friends and had a great time.  Hopefully each holiday weekend will be as fun as this one was!

Working Hard in Colombia

We have been keeping busy over the last few weeks.  Lesson planning, grading, and tutoring consumes almost every minute of every day.  The students are enjoying our classes as we are and we just hope they retain some knowledge after our class.  The system in place is against us.  The students only get English one day a week which makes it nearly impossible for them to learn a language.  The English department is considered a joke and many students (and professors) treat it as such.  There are so many obstacles to overcome but we do what we can.  The best thing that we have tried to do is to make it relevant to them, prove that English is indeed important.  Our presence at the university alone does this but also many students have high aspirations to travel and live abroad; so we focus on these things.  It seems to be working and even a student who absolutely refused to speak English from day one is participating and talking in class. 

Along with teaching our classes we have now implicated English/ Spanish classes at home.  It started with our 16 year old neighbor with dreams of becoming a movie star in Hollywood.  If anyone can dream that big they deserve all the help that I have to give, so I began teaching her 2 twice a week and in return she taught me Spanish.  Word spread quickly and by the end of the second week I had everyone sitting down for English class in the living room.  We are also lucky enough to have a more formal Spanish lesson every Monday with a fellow English professor.  My Spanish is improving at a rapid rate although I could only improve.  At this point I can follow a conversation and understand, in general what everyone is talking about.  I am able to catch words and piece them together in context; luckily Colombians are very expressive people so the big hand gestures help. 

Our first holiday is this Monday and we are excited to have an extra day to enjoy the city.  Our weekends are filled with chores and school work and it is hard to squeeze in sightseeing.  A fellow English professor was kind enough to take us out last weekend.  We ate at Crepes and Waffles, which I consider a Colombian Cheesecake Factory.  It a giant chain restaurant that everyone loves!  It was delicious and a burst of flavor compared to our usual food.  Then we went to a bar and enjoyed listening to Romantic music as we drank Micheladas.  Micheladas look like a Margarita with a rim full of salt but they are actually beer and lime juice.  Normally I would consider watering down my beer a blasphemy but all of the beer here taste similar to Corona so I welcomed the diversity of a Michelada.   After our 3 day weekend we are going to enjoy our Santa Semana, or Spring break, some of the other volunteers will be visiting and it will be very nice to see them and hear what their adventures are like. So we are happily in the home stretch to some much needed time off!